The top 10% of taxpayers contribute 60% of income tax...

[MsPinkMarshmallow]

I'm fed up of hearing that "high earners" will be targeted by the next budget.

The top 10% of taxpayers pay 60% of income tax.

Don't piss them off. They'll just leave the UK or work less so they're taxed less.

Some more stats: in 2024-25, the top 1% of income tax payers earned 13.3 per cent of total income and paid 28.2 per cent of income tax

35% of adults in the UK pay no tax at all

More from the Taxpayers Alliance here:

https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/briefing_share_of_income_tax_paid_by_percentile

<stands back and awaits kicking>

Yep, I do think some posters are just plain rude and/or nosey though, desperate to make folk look bad because they express a certain opinion. It's common on MN.

desperate to make folk look bad because they express a certain opinion. It's common on MN

this, they have run out of arguments and just attack instead

also that was a really silly ‘point’ loads and loads of people work in places where they can’t be near other people if ill or who don’t have a wfh job

No, if one of my staff was poorly enough to be bed ridden, I’d be concerned and I certainly wouldn’t expect them to work. I would however be surprised if they were too ill to work, but well enough to post and have arguments on here. Admittedly, most of what we do can be done remotely, but I have had a variety of jobs, including manual ones and on the occasions when I’ve been too ill to work, I’ve been too ill to do anything much at all. If I’ve called in sick, I’m not fit for anything, including posting on social media.

Posting on MN is not work. If you don't post, nothing happens.

Are we really at the point that someone can post on SM and be declared fit for their job, regardless of what it is?

I had a very physical job, and one of my work mates broke his leg and had months off. How on earth would he be in the wrong for still arguing online or posting on social media?

Can I refer to your name regarding this nosey and probing tangent?
I simply stated that I was ill, and everything else from other posters has been assumptions or add ons.

I had the shits the other day…absolutely well enough to do my current job at home, not in the office

the job i had in retail would have been impossible…but i could have been on mumsnet

its really not a difficult concept…hospital jobs, hospitality jobs, retail etc, all difficult to do if you are sick

I still can’t trust a fart 😳

When I've been off sick. Sometimes I scroll on my phone for a bit in bed.

Let's distinguish between people that are 'rich' and 'super rich'. The poorest in society are much closer to the rich, than the rich are to the super rich. we get distracted by fighting amongst ourselves.

the rich, maybe earning £100k, pay a lot.
the super rich pay little to nothing and don't have to work. a billionaire will earn £140k a night whilst they sleep if they put 1bn in a bank account with 5% interest (they would get more really), and as it's not 'income' they will pay little to nothing via trusts, or loaning it from a ltd company they own to themself.

the 'fact' that they will just go elsewhere is statistically proven as false when you look at countries like France, Spain and Switzerland that have implemented wealth taxes. Guess what, if you own land, sit on it and just live on the rental income, you can't 'just move'. The amount of capital flight versus the raised additional tax revenue in those countries is tiny. Anecdotal billionaires leaving hit headline news, but the data doesn't. just look it up.

So yes, the SUPER rich should pay more. The rich (i.e middle class) should not.

Let's stop conflating the super rich and the rich, as they sit their silently whilst we take each other down and squabble.

tax wealth not work.

What’s the top 10% now? It’s £59,200 and above. The average in the top 10% is around £76,900

If you earn over 100k you effectively pay 60% tax. This is why many lawyers, dentists, doctors, accountants work part time because they keep under that threshold. I know I personally try to keep under that.

But here’s the issue, would the government earn more tax if they dropped this down? Would there then be more incentive to work over the 100k threshold? I believe so.

Would they also find that these people spend more and put into the economy? I think so too.

The reason I believe they never would reduce the tax on those earning over 100k is optics, not pragmatism.

@labamba18 I agree the cliff edge at £100k makes no sense. Tax has become over complicated and they need to go back to basics.
As you say the optics are the issue.

There is also peoples perception based on where they are in their lifecycle. Two working parents with two DC in nursery with a mortgage/rent and student loans are at the most expensive part of their life. When they get to their 50s+ with the mortgage paid off and the DC having finished uni the same income goes much further.

Our tax system is definitely over complicated - all the better to hide all the layers of redistribution!

And Labour plan to make it more complicated, not simpler.

Look at Reeves' promise to pensioners who only have a state pension rhat they won't tax them during this term. But they've also announced extending the freeze on tax thresholds. So how will that work?

My suspicion is that Labour will add in another layer of complexity whereby how much income tax you pay will depend on not only on your actual income, but also on your age and your other assets.

It's Labour's dream: to take more tax from 'bad' (ie self-supporting) people than from 'deserving' people with the same income . I mean, they're already doing that with benefit claimants who pay no income tax... despite taking home the same as a high earner who is handing over about a third of their entire income.

No horizontal, vertical and generational fairness needed for Labour taxes!! Labour have 'Righteousness' on their side: whatever they do must be Good - because it's Labour doing it! Just more and more obfuscation and redistribution, to align with their destructive ideology.

They have completely lost my consent to levy tax. At this point, they're just a mafia.

Common sense says you keep the first tax threshold in sync with the new full state pension.

The real unfairness is income tax vs CGT.

CGT is was always levelled at the top rate of income tax, although it was indexed to inflation. Then they made the bizarre change to level it at 24% (top rate), but not allow indexation.

So, some people who made no capital gains after inflation still paid tax, but the wealthy who made huge gains after short periods are paying a very low tax rate.

And, of course, there are lots of other advantages to the wealthy. You can easily build up £500k of ISA as an individual or £1 mio as a couple, totally tax free. And there are EISs and VCTs.

Interestingly Labour didn’t tackle any of this, just some really weird stuff on cash ISAs. No one with real money would ever put their ISA in cash.

This is why I find the upset from high earners confusing. I earn loads and Ive made out like a bandit on ISAs and pensions. The 100k cliff edge is annoying but trivial to avoid then soon left behind of you're serious about your career.

It's not "soon left behind if you are serious about your career" for everyone. It depends on your sector. There are plenty of sectors where it is possible to go over 100k, but not much over. I'm thinking roles like headteachers, university professors.

Of course, but in that case it's easy to keep yourself below a 100k with modest pension contribution.

Not so modest if you are on about 125k. If your employer is already making substantial pension contributions for you (as in the case of teachers, univesity professors) and you are the main earner in your household, then it is quite likely you would prefer to use that 25k elsewhere.

To be fair, it's not the worst problem in the world to have. But I think we can agree that it is a silly inefficient tax structure and it would be much more sensible to get rid of the withdrawal of the personal allowance and instead bring down the threshold for the highest rate tax band and/or increase the highest rate of tax slightly so that the change was cost neutral. I dont really understand why they did it this way. I guess it probably flies under the radar a bit in turns of tax headlines. I only learned about it once I got close to it!

I wouldn't call 125k not much over 100k I suppose but I take your point.

I definitely agree with your overall point but I suspect you're correct, it's all designed to be as stealthy as possible!

Although - the £25,000 is £10,000 a month after tax at that level - so £800 a month.

Apparently high earners should just shut up and suck it all up "because those on low incomes work hard to".

My response - we are more vastly more skilled than you that's why we paid get the big bucks
You chose a low earning career, either better yourself or live with it. No-one is entitled to anything.

To the high earners who "want" to pay more tax. You go donate to HMRC. I won't be giving a penny extra. Nothing has never gotten better by giving it to the tax man. If you really cared about making a difference you'd use your money for private voluntary donations in your local community where'd you actually see the difference.

The marginal tax rate over £100k is 60%, how is it fair that the government takes 60% of earnings over the threshold?
Try being a VAT registered sole trader earning over 100k too.
Lose 20% of income in VAT, less VAT on legitimate business expenditure before ordinary income tax.

And would be £15,000 if taxed at 40% not 60%! That's the problem...

I disagree. Regarding your first point, there is an enormous amount of luck involved in terms of whether you end up being someone with the capacity for high earnings.

Regarding your second points, this is a pretty silly argument. I would be happy for tax rates to be increased a little, because then everyone would be paying higher taxes and the amount of money raised for public services would be noticaebley higher. I would not choose to pay a higher amount voluntarily to HMRC by myself as then there would be a negligible effect on the amount raised for public services but at a significant cost to me. This is a perfectly consistent position.